Lithium Crash
by supposed rockstar
Summary: Like. Love. Miss. Kill. I've already cracked. Commitment is never easy.
1. I Would Dial the Numbers

I have to be honest with everyone – writing this sequel scares the hell out of me. So many people loved _The Wall_ and since this is the follow up, MAN. I'm having anxiety over it something fierce. I want it to be good. Hell, I want it to be GREAT. I want to be proud of it. I'm just afraid it won't measure up. Besides, as I told I friend – I can write insanity. I know insanity. Recovery is foreign to me. But in saying this, I have a concept brewing.

I'm afraid this will turn into a bad remake of _Girl, Interrupted. _

I should shut up. Really.

God, I'm insane.

But with this story... Take it almost like an open notebook. It's going to be POV w/3rd person mingled in. It WILL be a mess to look at and will seem confusing, but look at who and what it's pertaining to – Insane Jude. Now that that's out of the way – 3 Cheers for Sweet Disclaimers!

I own nothing Instant Star. I do own, however, everything that isn't Instant Star related. (Figure it out!) I also own Tim Rozon and MAN... that kid has an appetite! Haha... "Bri, you're so dirty."

Yes... Yes, I am.

Actually, I'm still wondering if he'd commit to me for $20. HA!

PS: This chapter will be hell, but there are patterns. Patterns make me happy.

PSS: After writing this, I'm happy. I'm going to have fun.

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Chapter 1 / I Would Dial the Numbers 

It's blue. Everything is blue. All I see for miles in this place is blue. Blue walls, blue nurse uniforms, blue, blue, FUCKING blue. Except for this one girl's room; she's afraid of blue. Her room is green. She likes green. It's a pretty green. I want her room, dammit. I want to be her; afraid of blue, but all I can fear is this place and the solitude I'm confined in. I want to be her, with visitation rights and the promise that "one more week" will really set me free. If only time would hurry by, rush past me in a whirlwind I can't see, and allow me the freedom I so crave. The blue isn't so friendly when you stare at it for so long.

I've been here for a week, a long week. They won't let people visit me and for a week, seven days, too many hours and even more excruciating minutes and seconds, I've been alone. Alone to those obsessive _things. _They like me alone. They remind me constantly that it's the same. They bicker back and forth between apology and hatred. They hate me for being here. They apologize for bringing me here. I hear them dying. I hear their deathly screams as one more pill brings them closer to their timely demise. I laugh when I swallow that chalky, sunny yellow pill and hear them stirring loudly only to stun them back into their own darkness and shadows. I hear them choke on their words and the neuro-transmitted poisons I unleash in my defense.

My defenses have risen. They've taken me in and are protecting me from the walls, the nurses, those god-awful crazy people that close in around me.

"_Oh my god! You're Jude Harrison! I'm Leslie!"_

"_Jude, it's time for group. Come join the circle."_

"_Hey, PBJ. Haha... Peanut Butter and Jelly. Psych Break Jude. Haha..."_

"_Sorry, no visitors for you this week. Starting Monday, though..."_

"_Hey Jude... I've never liked the Beatles. I've never liked that name."_

"_Why are you talking to yourself, hon? We can give you something to help."_

"_What are _you_ doing here?"_

I WISH I WAS DEAD. I WANT TO DIE. LEAVE ME. LET ME DIE.

You don't get it. You don't get it. You will never get any of it. There is nothing here that will save me. There is nothing here that will take me back. Tommy is gone. A whole week. A whole week without his face. I want to die. Let me die. My family is gone. My voice is gone. Everything has been yanked out from underneath me and I don't know how to get it back. _"Take your meds, Jude." _FUCK YOU! I will not. If I am to rot in this hell hole you call help, then I will go out in the best way I know how. I will not follow you like them. Like Bina or Leslie or Nova or Kaylin or that stupid skinny girl that no one will tell me her name. They follow you. I will not. I owe you nothing.

I hate you. I want you DEAD! You hear me? DIE.

The walls are so fucking blue. Can I paint them? Can I say that I'm afraid of all colors but black? Will you paint them black so that I can dwell in the darkness and all that you will see is my paling skin? Will you just kill me? You want to. KILL ME!

"_Jude, I'll be here next week." Tommy traced his fingers along the length of her arm, stealing a kiss before turning to leave her prison._

"_Tommy, wait! Please don't leave me here!" Sobs wracked her body, falling to her knees and praying to him. "Please don't go. I need you..."_

"_I'll come back, ok? I told you I would. I promise."_

_She stretched out her hands to him in silent desperation, the reality of her fate sealing in around her, choking the little bit of life she had out of her body._

"_I love you... Don't go..."_

"_Next week. I love you, girl."_

I was better in the country. I was better in my slice of insanity. I was better than this. I was better than all of this. I am better than YOU. You hear me? I am better than you. I am Jude fucking Harrison. I am better than you and this hospital and your patients and your medications and your doctors and your fucking blue walls!

I could do it, you know? If you push me, I'll do it. I'll go out like I'd planned. This time, I won't be crying because the last thing I'll remember is Tommy's scent or the way the sheet felt silky against my throat. I'll cry because I'm happy. Because I'm fucking ecstatic to be leaving this place.

He'll come for me... He'll come for me... He'll come for me...

FUCK YOU!

He'll come for me and there will be nothing you can do. You have no power. You have no control.

He'll come for me.


	2. Seasonal Madness

This story is stuck. Really stuck. But I have ideas for days. Let's see where this fledgling piece of sequeldom will take us.

Thank you everyone for the reviews. You guys seemed to like Ch1, but... ehh. I'm not happy with it at all.

* * *

Chapter 2 / Seasonal Madness

If I have to talk to HIM... If I have to talk to Dr. Barry once more, I'll pull cards no one expects me to pull. He's nothing. Absolutely nothing. All he does is talk. All he does is ask stupid questions that I don't want to answer. He's an idiot. Those plaques and scraps of paper on his wall mean nothing. HE IS NOTHING. Oh, but to ask about Tommy? He crossed the line. He crossed the line and he'll pay severely.

"_Sit down, Jude. Let's talk." Jude stared at her shrink contemptuously, taking a seat on the oversized, over stuffed, over used "patients' chair". She's briefly reminded of the soft, pleather sofas of G Major, pushing the nagging thought of walking, no running, from Brice out of her mind before she could hatch a plan. She crosses her arms over her chest _

"_Talk, then." Her doctor eyes her up and down, nodding his head at some imaginary question._

"_How are you? Feeling ok?"_

_She rolls her eyes and smirks at him venomously, thinking of the ways she could kill him in that moment. She'd get away with it, she thinks. She's "crazy" or so they like to tell her._

"_I feel like hell. I don't smoke, but I sure could go for one of Tommy's cigs right now."_

_The doctor smiled knowingly at the mention of the illusive Tommy, taking a small break from the intent gaze he'd been giving his patient._

"_Tommy. You always mention him. Tell me about him."_

_Jude scoffed at his probing, brining her worn hand to her mouth and gnawing on one of her fingers. _

"_Naw, I'm good. Thanks."_

"_Come on! Humor me, Jude."_

_Jude's jaw clenched against her finger, growling under her breath._

"_FINE." She continued chewing. "Ask away; you will anyway."_

"_How'd you meet?"_

"_He's my producer. We work together."_

"_That must be hard – maintaining both a personal and professional relationship."_

"_Not really. They're about the same thing now that everyone knows."_

"_Knows?"_

He's going to push me. He's going to ask too much. He'll PAY.

"_Yeah, about us. You can't be that stupid, can you? I'm 17; he's 23. We had to keep it a secret for a while."_

_He looked at her slightly puzzled, slightly amused._

"_How'd you feel about that?"_

_She thought over the question for a minute, contemplating whether or not to tell him her true feelings or tell him to fuck off. She settled on a happy medium – denial._

"_I didn't feel much of anything. We had our reasons and he knew it would be for the best, so I was cool."_

"_Do you always go along with what he says?"_

"_I didn't mean it like that."_

"_Then how'd you mean it."_

"_Just that, Tommy looks out for me, you know? If he says something would be best one way, I don't mind agreeing with it. I mean, we fight about it sometimes. Sometimes he thinks he knows everything and that his reasons are always ok, and I know they aren't. But I know he only wants things to be okay for me."_

"_Do you love him?"_

"_That's a dumb ass question, Doc."_

"_Do you?"_

"_Of course! Why wouldn't I? He's the best thing that's ever happened to me."_

"_Does he," he paused for a second. "Do you think he loves you?"_

"_Yes."_

"_Why?"_

"_He's said it. He looks out for me. He... just does. I can see it, how he looks at me. I can feel it and hear it and see it and I just know."_

_He nodded happily at her response; she just glared._

"_Have you two been intimate? As in sex?"_

"_You're a freakish pervert, aren't you? Next, you're going to tell me to get naked and lay on the couch, huh? Too much Freud for you."_

"_I've hit a nerve, I see."_

"_No. We haven't done it. Happy?"_

"_Why would I be happy?"_

"_You asked, didn't you? And quit with the question reversing thing your doing. It's annoying."_

_He lifted his hands, conceding from the fight that begged to be begun._

"_Fair enough." He looked to be questioning himself as to where to take the interrogation. He took in a slight glimpse of his watch, adjusting the band before continuing. His mindless movements drove her nuts. "Was he the one who found you when you tried to commit suicide?"_

_Her eyes flashed in rage and horror. She never thought of it. She never went back to that time. That chunk of her history was always blacked out in mail censoring Fascistic ways. _

I'll hurt him one day.

"_Yes. He found me." She stood from her seat, biting back the verbal abuse she wanted to spew at the pseudo-psychiatrist who dug too deep. "We're done here."_

I see this man too much, mostly on group days when he feels I need to open up more. He probes at me, his words hanging like razors from the ceiling. I never see him on Sundays. I think he goes to church. I can't help but laugh at his religiousness. I laugh at his crucifix above his door and the card on his windowsill from whoever sent it with the Virgin Mary on the front of it.

He will die. He will die by my hand and he'll ask me where God is when he needs him. I'll laugh at him, with his blood on my hands, and tell him that I am god.

I hate him. I fucking hate him.

Don't do it, Doc. Don't make me do it. I'm crazy, remember? I'm fucking insane. You like it, don't you? BASTARD.

I've been tonguing my pills. I hide them in my pillowcase. They make me feel dead. I feel my body shriveling up inside of myself when I take them. I'm a small tiny dot inside the mechanical Jude when I take them.

Don't make me quit feeling. I have to feel something, even if it makes me want to die.

See? I'm ok. I'm always going to be good, fuckers.

YOU ARE NOTHING.


	3. I Want to be Rain that Tastes Like Wine

Word to the wise and those who just think they are:

**I'm flipping the script and upping the game.  
No bang in the beginning, but it won't end the same.  
When you see me? You'll know that I've came.  
Sooner or later you'll all know my name.  
No rewind just rebirth – it's all called change.  
Flat face zero to all encompassing range.  
From sing song to whistle – I'm to blame.  
Move in, move out – it's not called sane.**

Please believe, my dears. Please BELIEVE.

Fuck what you heard; fuck what you've seen.

It's all going up.

PS: Trust me, I can run with clichés until I die, but don't worry. There is nothing w/o prvocation or just caust. I won't fall into that trap. Oh, please believe!  
PSS: CITS - better, madamoiselle? ;)

* * *

Chapter 3 / I Want to be Rain that Tastes Like Wine

Jude closed the ragged black doctor prescribe notebook, tossing it across the tiny quadrangle they called a room. She'd decided to read her "progress report" and it made her sick. There was no change only fatiguing rage and broken emotion. It tore her up to know she'd been reduced to catatonic free writing and it sat between golden lyrics and elementary school red-inked hearts with "Tommy" written in the middle. She made herself sick.

_I'm not alright. I'm not ok. _Jude forced herself not think of the known revelation, the idea that she really belonged there an even greater strain than the isolation and unknown resolutions to it all. The entire scene made her heart physically hurt while killing her more and more everyday. She knew no one. She talked to no one. She'd seen no one. Even her head was empty, what little she took of those "sero-somethings" taking the only thing she could count on to be there for her in her times of absolute loneliness. Sadly, she missed them. She missed the mindless chatter and their hell-bent-on destructiveness. She missed feeling _alive._

She stood and went to the postage stamp window, wishing she'd hear the rev of the trusty blue Viper from the fourth floor she was condemned to. She prayed she'd see him running in leaps and bounds through the main entrance and up the front steps, needing to reclaim his love. She pinned hopes and dreams on the illusionary reality, wondering why she wasn't already gone.

Nine days; nine days of living with herself and no one else. Nine days of royal walls and muslin thin mattresses that ate at her back at 2 am. Nine days without a word from the outside world, a punishment forced down her throat and made to swallow. Nine days to find ways to slink away without being caught. She couldn't take the deprivation tank any longer. Something had to give.

An overbearing buzz and a shriek of a girl from the common area drove her deeper into the cold, hard facts sitting right in front of her. She'd have to cave. She'd have to let go of her walls and burdens if she was to ever leave, ever see the star of her northern sky again. This pill was even bigger and harder to swallow than the lemony ones she tried to down without water. She would become a sheep, even if only through pretense.

A nurse stuck her head through Jude's door, eyes wandering around the barren cubicle.

"Jude, it's time to get your meds." The Devil's advocate slipped back around the door frame, closing it soundly to finalize her departure.

Jude reluctantly trudged out to the holding bay, picking up her designated translucent cup, and shot back its contents without thinking. She spotted Bina playing yet another sadistic prank on Leslie, the girl sobbing for her magazine back. Kaylin sat with the skinny girl in a corner, trading stories about their self-injury and the best way to avoid the dining hall. Nova, just as Jude, was by herself and paying special attention to the other four girls. _If only I could talk to her, maybe..._ Jude was rudely interrupted by the information desk helper lady.

"Miss Harrison, there's a call for you. You can come around and pick it up in the other office."

She ran. She ran faster than she had when Sadie once chased after her with a scalding hot crimping iron. She grabbed the phone greedily, breathless and exhilarated.

"Hello!"

"_Hey, Jude!"_

Her shoulders slumped forward, the vibrancy of the phone call's merit dashed.

"Hey, Sadie. How are you?"

"_Good. How's... you know?"_

"Hell, but I manage. How are mom and dad?"

"_They're... mom and dad, but good. We miss you like crazy."_

"That's nice." The moment was so fleeting, so real yet so unlikely. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

"_Hold on, ok?" _

_That's great. I'm holding the fuck on. FABULOUS!_

"_Hey, girl."_

She died. The smooth sound of his voice, the resonating masculinity behind his metonym, the never tiresome unspoken volumes simmering just under his breath, she died a thousand deaths.

"Tommy, hey."

"_How are you?"_

"Tired of being here. Lonely. When are you coming by?"

"_Wednesday." _She heard him sigh, imagining his breath was falling against the side of her neck. _"Everyone at the studio's been asking about you. They miss you being around."_

"_I_ miss being around. Tell them I said hey."

"_I will." _

The sound of giggling pierced her eardrums, the familiarity becoming maddening. As if by divine intervention, it stopped. Rage still slashed through her temples.

"Why are you with Sadie?"

"_Oh, she needed a ride somewhere."_

"You lie."

"_What? Jude, no."_

"Is that what your plan was? To lock me up to go back with _her_?"

"_She needed a ride, that's all. It's not like that."_

"She has a car."

"_It's dead. She hit a mailbox or something. Bad driving must run in the family."_

His feeble attempt at humor infuriated her more. Her grip on the telephone deepened, her knuckles turning white. Everything she'd wanted since she'd been admitted into Brice faded into animosity, destroyed with the fact that her heart was with a piece of her hell, with his ex-_it. _She heard her in the background, questioning and wondering about their personal phone call. Jude wanted nothing more than to kill, the overriding emotion as of late. She breathed heavily into the phone, throwing down her trump.

"Fuck you, Quincy."


	4. Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God

Oh, my soul breathes yet my eyes do no deceive... What was taken when it was ended, retrieved from bandit thieves. It's the return.

I'm actually slightly annoyed with this site right now. DAMN YOU FF!

On with it...

PS: Maybe I'm too taken in by details. DAMN ME.

PSS: This one's gonna be short. Just a little something to mix it up.

PSSS: I've used a HELLUVA lot of song lyric refs in this story. I dare you to find them all.

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Chapter 4 / Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God 

The all too familiar tremble settled in, Jude wringing her hands, her good riddance to it all. It felt too right, too known. Wasn't this place supposed to serve as a refuge? Weren't things supposed to change? Wasn't _she _supposed to change? _Give it up, Harrison. _And there it was, the thought. Give up, walk away, concede, secede; was it all she would be known for? Good for? _The sympathetic character..._

"Well, if it isn't Miss Instant Star, Jude Harrison. Trouble in paradise?"

Something about the question amused her in the most melancholy of ways. _Trouble in paradise. _

"What's up, Nova?"

"Just eavesdropping. How's Mr. Q?"

Jude grazed upon the feast the girl gave her. Scorpion black hair shorn too close for comfort, hazel, no grey, eyes that shown no emotion other than distinct matter-of-factness, model material evident in the razor thin lines of her clavicles and the crease between hip and jeans. She irritated Jude, something about the way she stood and waited for details. She intrigued Jude, something about the way she smirked and reminded her of Tommy.

"He's _something_." She stopped herself before she continued to edge towards ranting and raving, puzzled and confused. "Wait, how did you know it was Tommy?"

"The tabloids?" There it was, the soon-to-be evident stupefying tone Jude knew so well from some lifetime ago.

"You get those here?"

Nova laughed, rolling her eyes at Jude's obliviousness to The Truth, Way, and Light at Brice.

"Are you kidding me? Leslie would cry herself to sleep if she didn't get her tabloid fix. It's funny when you see Bina take them from her. The girl just cries and whines like someone shot her cat." Jude just laughed, knowing people already knew her business and story. Nova took it as a sign to sit down next to her. "So, why are you here?"

"Ehh... Tried to kill myself. Hanging isn't effective if you don't lock the door, you know?"

"Kid, nothing is effective if you don't lock the door." Nova lifted the sleeves of her shirt, proudly showcasing the large russet purple scars that adorned her arms. "Down the road not across the street. I'm an idiot and went across the damn street."

Jude couldn't resist the urge to touch one of the raised stripes, Nova recoiling in defense. She lowered her sleeves, crossing her arms behind her head. The moment was refreshing, making light of attempts and failures.

"How long have you been here?"

"Four months and counting."

"Shit! If I stay here four months, I really will lock the door."

Nova smiled, running her ragged nails down the length of face in lethargic restlessness.

"There aren't any locks around her except to the dispensary and the administration office. You better pray they don't catch you in time... _again."_

"Ha, just watch the door for me."

"No way, kid. If I'm going to hell, it won't be for helping someone kill themselves. I reserve that right to me and me alone."

"You're a freak, Nova."

"Shut up. You like it." She winked, standing and walking out of the side office. "But I'm going to go see which twosome is being the most entertaining. Stop by 317 sometime. We can talk more about you and Mr. Q."

"Sure thing."

Nova was a double-platinum smash up that unnerved her yet brought a bit of levity to the "Tommy Question" that had just been asked. How could she joke about her stay there or her arms? _Will I ever be able to joke about it?_

Jude made her way out of the enclosure and back to another one, this one even colder than the last. In her world, it was early but fatigue had already crept, crawled, and balled in the mix of the afternoon. _How could he?_ _How the hell could he! _She figured the questions and recalling pointless, stretching back and putting it all on an invisible shelf to fester until it would count.

She reached into her pillow and retrieved the small handful of sunshine she'd not taken, popping a couple more down for good measure. If she were to get "sane", the more the merrier. She'd deal with him Wednesday; she'd make him pay his tariffs and taxes that were quickly amounting to his natural born life.

_Why must I always manage my madness over you? _She lay in the matchbook bed pulling the cover up and over her face. _Wednesday, Mr. Q. Wednesday; enjoy it while you can._


	5. For Any Girl Who’s Unhappy

Yes.

Why do I hate this damn story so much? Why do I hate all of this so god damn much? Why, why, fucking WHY! This is the worst thing ever.

Let's just go on with it.

And I have that stupid song Craig (Degrassi) sang in ep 513 on repeat and it just... gets to me. Let me channel this darkness and turn it into creative something.

On day, I WILL end up in Brice. (And yes, it's an actual place.)

This chapter will seem so heavy in word play and what have you that it may not actually make much sense. If it doesn't, take it how it is. It's all there for a reason.

Again, this was one of those chapters that drained the hell out of me. One of those chapters that poured out of me from some place I can't call.

* * *

Chapter 5 / For Any Girl Who's Unhappy 

Wednesday; the day of reckoning for an already reckoned man. Jude woke up dull and listless, head pounding and eyes heavy with the prospect of confronting the one thing that stood in the way and stood for her only sense of happiness. She counted aloud her time spent in her prison, comparing them to the medication days she's experienced. Today, she wouldn't take her meds. Today, she would face the wall head on and alone and without the help of a crutch. Today; today was her day.

From wake up to mindless chatter with Nova that grated on her ill-eased nerves to her hour wasted with Doctor Barry, she could do nothing but mindlessly count the minutes down to three o'clock. She owned that number and time, hiding it deep within herself. She rehearsed and rehashed the plans and words she'd say to him. It was so straight forward – he'd pay hell. He'd get the tongue lashing and closure he needed and possibly begged for, and she's return back to the doldrums to dwell in the shadows once again. She felt crazy and she liked it. It almost meant something.

Tommy strode through the double doors of her floor in her ward effortlessly; all of his crosses and worries rested solely on Jude's shoulders. His mirrored aviators were pulled low on his nose, shielding his eyes from the prying glances and daring whispers that couldn't interrupt his green mile walk. She sat at the table in the far corner, alone and awaiting a single glimpse of the forceful and fettering presence she craved more than her release. At long last, he'd returned to her. It took her breath away.

"Jude, girl, how are you?" He pulled a chair to sit next to his ratty t-shirt and pajama bottom clad girl. He reached for her hand, her pulling back in the knick of time.

She held up her finger, pleading for a second to compose herself. She almost cried; she almost wept from the beautiful way he said her name and penitence. She nearly broke then and there, taken aback by the strength in his shoulders, the stoniness of his face, the gentle way his neck curved into the dip she loved to lay her cheek upon.

"Just... don't move. I want to remember you like this forever." Her face melted into a saddened, hazy resolve. So many of her previous thoughts had vanished, replaced with a whitening of the mind and darkening of the heart. "You're so fucking beautiful, Quincy. You're like the last twang of an electric guitar, the final bitter notes tingling on the tip of your tongue. You're the softest note ever sang in the most heartfelt song that can't help but make you cry because that's its job. You're so much to take in. You are so much to take away. I've missed you more than I've missed myself. You're so beautiful and you don't even know it. Why can't you just stay that way? Stay like this forever. Stay so crisp and clean and fresh in my mind, the way you are when I wake up in the middle of the night and reach out for you when I know you aren't there. Why do you always have to change?"

Tommy adjusted his glasses, hoping they hid the soft tears that collected in tithing in the corners of his eyes. Never had he heard such things about himself. No one ever cared enough to look inside of him, and to have her call him beautiful weakened every defense and coping mechanism that put him into auto-pilot whenever he was around someone. He moved as close as he could, taking hold of every part of her that he could get his hands on. He knew it was wrong or maybe improper, but he couldn't help but cry against the lovely brass hair he'd fallen for when he'd seen it drenched and coated in the bright sunlight that day at the pier.

"I've missed you so much, Jude. I've missed you so damn much."

Her hands went to the nape of his neck, messaging and smoothing the soft skin, and toying with the stray strands of hair that bristled against her fingers.

"Is that why you went to Sadie? I mean, I get loneliness. This place is so cold, Tommy." She choked on his name, swallowing it back and drinking it down. Her words rolled so fluidly off of her lips, stinging him back to the reality that was presenting itself.

"I didn't go to Sadie. I told you."

"You told me what you thought I wanted to hear. Look at me!" She pushed him away from her; face reddened and eyes brimming over with the saline that burned as it cascaded down. She grabbed his glasses, ripping them from the tired face she wanted to hate. "Why? That's all I want to know."

"Jude, please, just listen to me."

"I did listen to you and look where it's got me!" She stood abruptly and her arms flailed outwards, showcasing the home she now had to call. "It hurts, Tommy, and I don't mean in _here._ It hurts physically. My body aches trying to take it all in, to know that you couldn't even wait until you saw me again. Loving you hurts."

"I'm not with Sadie. I promise I'm not. You have to believe me. You just misunderstood."

Anger seared her soul with the branding of his words and hidden insinuation.

"Because I'm crazy, right? I'm crazy so I misunderstood, right! I heard her laughing while you talked to me. I heard her asking what we were talking about. She was right there with you. Why can't you just hate her? Why can't you just leave her alone?"

Jude's switch scared Tommy. From her foggy forthcomings to irate irritation, something from the flip shook him yet knew she spoke some shred of truth. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? He knew it was harmless, but he was careless. He should have known what would come out of the simple gesture.

His arms went out to recapture the untamed beast that threatened to hunt him down until she destroyed herself. She fought against his entrapment, fist finally connecting to his jaw. He sat back stunned, an equally stunned Jude shaking at him rubbing along his jaw line. From the far side of the room, two male nurses appeared in their pristine corn silk blue scrubs. They edged in closer to Jude quickly, taking her arms in a move to keep her from doing any more harm to the innocent visitor.

"LET ME GO! LET ME FUCKING GO! TOMMY!" She screamed as loudly as her still broken voice would allow, unnerving everyone within earshot.

Tommy jumped from his seat, racing to her rescue.

"Let her go! Stop! LET GO OF HER!"

"We don't allow such actions here, sir." The brutish nurse tightened his grasp on the lightening strike kicking and thrashing Jude. Her face knotted in pain within his hands, still screaming for her release.

"It was nothing. I'm fine. Just let her go. You're hurting her!"

The two nurses exchanged glances, easing up on the fragile thing they owned for the moment. She broke free from their hold and ran to Tommy, the only love sprung from the only hate. She babbled into his chest, her hands digging into the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

"I don't want to forgive you, dammit! I don't want to forgive you again..."

Tommy smoothed down the back of her hair, frazzled in the commotion just seconds ago. Normally, he would have pulled her away and made her understand that he was guiltless, but he couldn't. He couldn't take being without her and in his arms regardless of circumstance. A far off buzzer droned and her body turned limp and languid within his hug. All of the other visitors began filing out of the meeting place, Tommy and Jude feeling the pressure of their defeat.

"I swear before everything I can, Jude. I'm not with Sadie. I only want you. I only love you. Please see that, please. Don't hate me. Please forgive me for hurting you. I didn't mean to. God knows I didn't."

"I don't hate you, Quincy. I never could. I love you, but forgiveness is another thing."


	6. Like Children Often Do

It's been a long time gone and even now... I have no idea.

Tuesdays are meant for dreamers yet I don't dream. Who the fuck knows?

Let's make something of it even if it is a total mess.

And here I ramble and it occurred to me that I speak in broken quotes.

And what the hell... I rhymed that... Whatever man.

I'm far beyond uninspired. This story is like... a complete disaster. I have no direction nor do I have any drive. Ya know... I think I'm going to say fuck it all and just... go with it. Maybe Brice isn't that good after all... Sorry for it being so damn something.

This story can almost make me cry... if I ever cried, that is. Dr. Barry – knew someone like him once. I hated him, too.

And... Join me and crash at the forum. COME ON. We're talking to ourselves, now.

Side note: Is IS even set in Toronto? I guess I've just always assumed...

* * *

Chapter 6 / Like Children Often Do 

_What have they done to her? _Tommy drove aimlessly around downtown Toronto, soaking in the skyscrapers ravaging the skyline and the swift changing traffic lights. He barely took notice of the colors, garnering a few honks and screamed obscenities his way. He shrugged it off, mindlessly slipping in Jude's CD for old time's sake. He drowned himself in the sorrows and triumphs hidden behind every chord change, vibrato, and song he matched to pasts gone so far by. It felt like a bad fairy tale read before an evening spent with nightmares. So many of those songs spoke to him on so many levels; good, bad, somewhere in the land of blues and greys.

_Just to hear her sing to me one more time... _

He tried but couldn't make sense of their visitation. Her whirlwind emotions and rapid shifting from high to low to grappling to hold straws confused him. None of it seemed to follow a pattern or fit into any mould he could conjure to squeeze it into. And again, the words taunted him in playground fashion. _You're so fucking beautiful, Quincy. Loving you hurts. _He winced at the recollection, smiling nonetheless. She thought he was good. The brightest and most shimmering person in his entire existence thought he was good, even if it tore her up.

He couldn't stand knowing that he was destroying her by way of her own love for him. The dichotomy was much more than a compare and contrast between x and y. It summed them up perfectly. Live to love and love to live, feeling hate yet hate the feeling – all so much good wrapped and captured in the opposing bad. It was the point of the game, meeting somewhere in the middle. He wanted her in his middle and wanted to find hers.

He paused the CD, pulling into the parking lot just above the pier he'd worked his way to. He exited the car and slowly made his way down to the edge of the dock. He turned to look at the now lonely and cold bench, feeling the clichéd abundance of joy remembering the two of them sitting there and working on her first professional song. It all seemed too storybook to even imagine now, everything folding and unfolding with the worn edges of an ancient note passed between class bells and locker slams.

_Check yes or no, Tom._

He wanted his girl back. He wanted her with him on the weekdays and daring him on the weekends. He wanted her to smile, to laugh, to stare at things in the weathered exuberance that made her look so lovely at dawn. He needed to feel her hands exploring his face. He needed to hear her talking for no other reason than she could. He needed his synapses scorched by the fire that raged when she said his name. Brice wasn't making her better. Brice was teaching her to be animalistic and to fear everything she couldn't see. Brice was making her cold and zonal. Brice was killing her and all that she wanted to be. Brice was the antichrist to her deified existence.

Tommy pulled his phone from his pocket, praying to let the caged bird sing not for freedom but to sing within it.

"Yes, I need to know what I have to do to check out Jude Harrison."

* * *

Tired and trembling trepidation brought Jude to the unseen wearing of Doctor Barry's heavy oak door. She rapped silently against its matte finish, hoping he didn't hear her or was busy with someone else. He swung open the door in anxious fervency, clearly shocked by the frail girl's presence.

"Jude, can I help you?"

She pushed her way past him, finally taking in the surroundings she'd seen seven times since her admittance. The walls hung in dark draperies, a muted mix and match of cold caramel and chocolate taupe. His formidable desk of ebonized cherry sat precariously amongst white cardboard boxes with nondescript black magic marker written on the sides to give some coded peek at what laid just beyond their loose lids. A steaming cup of something was placed on the edge of a manila folder splayed out in their disrupted file system. A bright teal swash of color was the only brightener to the dark space she hated and dreaded seeing every time she whispered the conversations she had with herself.

She sat herself straight backed in the patients' chair, motioning for him to follow suit. He did as was instructed, looking over the two fingers that tapped along his upper lip. She hated his arms. The way they seemed so big and lumpy and how they made all of his shirts not meet his wrists. She hated his fat, angular face, and the unfriendly blue eyes that stared at her in silent contempt. She hated his lazily pieced together hair, and how it fell over his oily forehead semi-masking the deep creases that settled in when she cursed or brought up things she wouldn't discuss. She hated him, but he was the only bearer of knowledge within miles of her confinement.

Jude coughed slightly, brushing her fingers along the white marks where her rings used to rest for her playing. She stared at the doctor, already full of venom but swallowing the poisons she wanted to unleash.

"What's wrong with me, Doc?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. What is wrong with me? Am I just 'crazy' and that's it? Why am I like this? There has to be a name for it. I mean... I..."

"Where is this coming from, this anxiety?"

"Don't start with the questions, ok? I have to know. I'm here for a reason, right? You've doped me up for a reason. There's a reason I'm angry but empty yet still wanting to die. What the fuck is wrong with me?"

The doctor took in the sight of his frantic patient, the anger an over gloss for the tears that glazed over every paled feature. He leaned back farther in his char, resting his hands across his stomach.

"Borderline and schizotypal."

Jude's shoulders sagged at the final diagnosis and labeling of everything she'd struggled with for so long. Not that it clarified the matter at hand or even made it easier to process; it just finally gave her something to call it. She again looked around the room, seeing how unorganized it looked compared to the organization she was trying to give her mind set. He'd given her such a short, clear cut answer that it seemed that it should be that simple to sort out his papers and trite collections of picture frames and coffee cups.

She stared at her wizard of psychological mastery, still not knowing what her labels were.

"What does that mean?"

"The borderline part explains the mood shifts and distinct attachments and detachments. The schizotypal part explains your delusions and affect."

"Oh." She didn't feel any better with the explanation. She took his words at underlying value, confirmation that she really was crazy and deserved to be there. She hated him for making it all seem so simple, so black and white. It wasn't what she'd hoped for. Some part of her wished it would have explained all of the darkness and troubles she ran at and through. She wanted it to explain why rather than what. She wanted it to fix her.

_Too little, too late Monsieur. _

"Are you ok, Jude?"

"Of course. I'm going to go now. Sorry for coming by like this." She stood to leave, taking one last look around. She shook her head to the sad little man with his sad little office in such disarray. She closed the door soundly behind her, letting the labels get the best of her. _Crazy, crazy Jude..._


	7. I Don’t Want to Miss You Tonight

You know what? FUCK THIS. I am BRI. I am BRILLIANT. Fuck this self-deprecation and what it stands for. I. AM. BRI.

Uh hm. Yeah... that's what I do when I need to mentally pimp smack myself. Hey! It's fun.

I have an idea for this. REALLY! As Crash so nicely labeled it, "Protective Tommy" is about to emerge. And Jude's... Jude's Jude. Still pretty damn fucked up but... yeah. And trust me... I'm sensing a little drama on the horizon. Don't think all that time spent in Brice was in a vain.

Forgive me for making this heavy but I fucking like it that way.

I HAVE A PLAN! And this is about to turn into my pretty little play ground for odd word play and crazy details. I kind of want to get lost in them. I kind of wish this was 100 percent mine.

And OH YEAH.

**REVIEW. Thanks.**  
And please tell me if I ever confuse you or you just don't get it.

* * *

Chapter 7 / I Don't Want to Miss You Tonight 

Tommy popped his neck, adjusted his sun glasses, and burst through the double doors into the fourth floor, Jude's floor.

"Sir? Sir! You can't go in there right now!"

He didn't stop his steadfast path towards Jude, waving a hand in the generalized direction of the woman who was trying to interrupt him on his undertaking. Had his face been granite, there wouldn't have been a chisel strong enough to scrape and crack away at the hard rock plaster job. The man had a mission. The man had a drive. The man...

_My god..._

He stopped dead in his tracks; his footing felt shaky even though his feet seemed bolted to the cracked slate tiles beneath his well-worn leather shoes. He could have counted the seemingly miniscule amount of time he'd last seen her in hours, minutes, and seconds but it still shocked him to look at her.

She lay across the Formica topped activities table, arm to temple, tracing patterns into the faux wood grain. Her hair was a mess of angles on planes, falling against her cheek in haggard, tormenting clumps. She had her eyes closed, raccoon eyes. She looked like she wore her signature black eyeliner but it was just the fatigue that had taken up residence against her face. She seemed smaller, paler, and more fragile than even the most delicate of crystal dragons and dolphins he'd seen his mother lock away in a curio cabinet in his childhood. This cabinet had transformed her into an ever dimming twenty watt bulb, brightening just before it blew.

"Jude!" He steadied himself against his solid outburst, damn near sprinting to her piece of hell. She didn't look up at him. She didn't acknowledge anything other than the random exes and ohs she kept tactilely whispering over and over and over again. He knelt and reached for her shoulder, sliding his fingers up to her chin, wanting her to wake up. "Jude, baby, get up."

She lazily opened her eyes, looking at him in ways only known to the dead. She blinked hard, staring back down at her invisible masterpiece.

"Visiting hours are over, Tommy."

"You're going home." She simply smiled, instilling the fear of god in him the way his priest did when he took confession on Wednesdays. He remembered the way he'd found her, completely submerged in the down blankets and silk sheets of her insanity. The way she rambled on and on, frustrated with the way she couldn't form complete sentence. The way she screamed at him for not being real, for being completely nothing. He grabbed her arms and pulled her into a fully upright position. "Didn't you hear me?"

"This is my home now. I'm crazy."

"NO YOU AREN'T!" The roar he unleashed echoed within the tiny blue room, warranting a shriek from a young blonde girl and maniacal cackling from the brunette sat across from her, ate its way through his demeanor. He looked down at her, still unfazed. "Jude, what happened? What's wrong?"

"The doctor told me what was wrong with me. It's been called and it has a name. I'm crazy now."

He pushed the jumbled chaos away from her face, stroking the roughened softness of her cheekbone. Her skin was cold to the touch, ice against the pads of his fingers. He felt the tension built up in her jaw and the quiet gnashing of her teeth. He leaned in close to her ear, mumbling just loud enough for her to hear.

"Forget everything he said, girl." The smell of winter hung onto the edge of earlobe, sleet crackling just behind. He sat up, pulling her up with him. "I will _not _let you stay her. Come on."

She peered at him, so down trodden and devastated. She opened her lips to speak, closing them once more. She grabbed his hand, wrapping his arm around her and hiding just beneath the side of his jacket. The movement touched him, moved him as he felt her slightly pushing him towards the exit. He tightened his hold on her, falling in step with her soldier marching. Again, a woman from the lands of no where shouted at him.

"Where are you going with her?"

He turned his head to look over at the attendant behind the half inch thick glass at the "help" desk. He smiled at her tacitly, every implication of victory twinkling in his eyes.

"Home. Mail me the papers I need to sign." The same male nurse who'd dared to touch Jude stepped out in front of him, trying to block their departure.

"She can't leave." He stood cross armed, tensing the muscles in his forearms. Tommy continued smiling as he lifted his cover of protection from Jude for the moment. He fell in close to the nurse, head to head, combat ready for the undertaking.

"Like hell I can't. I want you to try and stop me." He stared at his rival and gladiator opponent, mentally willing him to enter the war. The nurse just snorted, stepping to the side and making his mordant gesture to welcome their exit.

"Right this way, sir."

Tommy arrogantly winked at the man, holding onto Jude once more.

"Thank you." He led her towards the door, her stopping and looking over her shoulder back into the room. He followed her gaze and word mouthing to the razored and darkened girl sprawled out on the couch. She nodded her head in approval and goodbye, Jude finally taking them over the threshold and out her imposed doom.


	8. Momentum

I feel that I have to give a precursor for this chapter only because... I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't pay to be 21.

For the past couple of chapters, I've written just to write and this will be no exception. I'm really aching to get inside of Tommy's head. I want to show the world how beautiful the man really is. I don't know. It transcends IS fanGIRL-ness into another realm of writing and poetry. I have to write even if it makes no progression. I don't want it to make sense.

This is what it is.

* * *

Chapter 8 / Momentum 

_When is time just another something that we must try to forget? When does it all come crashing down around us? When do we actually see the error of our ways and realize that the only way to get things back is to move forwards? Oh, you questions, you! Must you always taunt me?_

For what felt like the Second Coming, Jude sat beside Tommy in his beloved car. She was motionless, expressionless, aimless and all the while, completely reckless by just breathing. He stole every glance he could find to steal, taking it and smuggling it behind the borders of his mind. With her just there, the day was good. The day was what he'd always pinned his desires upon. The day was everything it was supposed to be and more. She made for him the day.

Traversing between the ice and snow never felt as natural as it did when she was with him. He was the man of ice; he was the man of snow. He was he man everyone turned to for brutal honesty and fleeting looks of contempt. With her next to him, he didn't have to pretend not to care. He only had to be. He only wanted to be.

He couldn't fathom ever living another waking day without her next to him. Though time only counted to twelve the days they'd been apart, it felt like a lifetime he didn't want to live. Every waking hour was spent trying to prepare himself for an even longer journey through the unknown and every waking minute was spent trying to convince himself that this was what it was all about; that this was really something good for her. He failed miserably the test Fate tried to make him take. He failed living without her.

He felt selfish and arrogant in his thoughts. _He _wasn't the one to make her better. _He _wasn't the one to change anything. He was just the man trying to fulfill a dream. He was the poor soul that rested his burdens upon the shoulders of a someone they called a child and prayed she didn't snap more than she already had.

By karmic intercession, she placed her hand on his knee. The soft skin against his rustic, worn denims broke him down. How he wanted to feel her forever! Screw the road; screw the people; screw all of the dead ends and repercussions. This was the touch he'd wanted forever. This was the touch he'd fantasized about when he was drunk and planned on when he wasn't; the loving touch of a girl who saw him for what he was – a broken, reclusive man in the twilight years of his juvenescent stardom.

_I love you._

It reeked havoc yet built new cities of gold and platinum. Oh, how he loved her, how he yearned for her, how he wished to bring her back from the brink she'd fallen over unbeknownst.

_I love you._

Diffused, a life force that never seemed worth counting, he was alive within his love for her. It made him count. It made him human and real and touchable.

"I love you." The words passed so easily from thought to verbalization. He didn't break his back and forth, see-saw visuals from road to _her,_ but he knew she smiled somewhere unseen. He knew she hung onto all three syllables.

"I love you, too." Four syllables. Four sounds, four tones, four pieces that fit the puzzle and made him complete. Without her four, he was a picture without corners. How she filled his every corner.

Tommy found himself back at home, a home that awaited the subtle warmth amidst permafrost of his friend, partner, and someday lover. The drive was long and short and entirely built on the rampant thoughts of those who should have been called crazed, not the one they labeled as such. He smiled the brightest smile he'd ever smiled in his entire generation, happy to know that he was with his one and only; happy to know that life was worth living again.


	9. Would You Forgive Me Love?

It's been a crazy couple of nights and well... what have I told people? My stuff comes best to me when I'm fucked up, but this is more self-induced than _other_ induced. I really don't know.

These last few chapters, I know, have done little to move this story along. I know where it will go; it's getting there that is the best part. Don't worry. Besides, Feb 10 is still an age away.

Thanks to A, W, and D who have listened to my ramblings this past week. Merci...

So it is written...

* * *

Chapter 9 / Would You Forgive Me Love? 

The middle of midnight crashed and burned as Jude walked into the bathroom she'd avoided and ran past all day. She flipped the light switch, squinting her eyes at the invasion of light. It all seemed the same, towels still folded and menacing cast iron tub tucked into a corner. _Always a corner... _A blending of tumbled marble, slate, and limestone all stood so familiar as to remind her of a faraway island with threats and crazy French spoken between suds and monsters. An old, sea-worn trunk full of regalia of antiquity and a foreboding black spot on the edge of the counter. _Poor Island, so full of unclaimed treasure._

She watched her feet as she went to the middle of the room. _Black, teal, silver. Black, teal, silver. _The colored numbering did nothing for the riverbank she saw her life lay along so corrupted. The colors did nothing for the thin branch she stood upon, forced to question why she'd jounced the limb. No casts or missed sets this year; no quagmires where saltwater met fresh; she was alone with her mental calisthenics, preparing for a war she'd only get out of due to Section 8.

_Protect your defective from the ravages, dear generals._

She walked to the little hiding place for all of his linens, opening the door to rummage through the fabrics bringing a sense of 80-proof déjà vu. She brought her prize to her face triumphantly, catapulted to a time that seemed to fade into oblivion if she turned her head too quickly. It felt silkier this time around, softer to touch and to contemplate. Still a tortuous tourmaline, it was quieter this time in its begging.

The drips from the chrome faucet matched her heartbeat in accompaniment, slow the tempo and up the bass. She found herself pressed against the back of his shower, fingers running along the hardware with a detective's precision. She knelt, the old time rock hard pressure against the base of her neck. She knelt, leaning over the fabric and praying that her weeping would be her baptismal blessing. Confrontation was always at the River Jordan.

Morning was a long time coming, an outsider to her own reality. She watched the Plexiglas encasement, curious as to what could crack the poor excuse for protection. The glass menagerie, with its fiddlers and puppeteers feeding upon the discarded oyster shells, looked at the alter for which the prized pearl lay in all of it gloriousness, blue eyes and all.

_Would you forgive me, love, if I cried in your shower?_

Her sobs deepened, bouncing and vibrating on the mirror's reflection. They hung in the air like stale cigarette smoke after a long night of soul searching and in-depth discussions with oneself. She was face to face with the angry recurrence, always in the bath when time was called.

She cried for herself and the self-pity that wanted to take over in times like these. She hugged herself for her lovely friends and their seemingly intrinsic love for each other. She pounded her fists for her parents, blinded by the same love and left alone once the first fires turned to a barely smoldering pile of ash. She twisted the edges of the sheet for Tommy, knowing what he'd seen and how he couldn't bring himself to get rid of what nearly got rid of her. She scraped her nails along the bottom of the stall for Tommy, apologetic that he wanted to love someone like her.

It was the old wooden roller coaster that loomed in the foreshadowed distance, too high for high and too low for low, coming and going and flipping as it pleased. The emotion was hardly verbalized anymore; no more the days of Nessie in the steaming lochs that cleansed her skin and soul. She walked to the base of Aftermath, taking in and on the exorcism.

_Mission failed though complete._

Such a short expanse, she felt farther removed from the paralleled universe where she was supposed to be but knew it was still a place to get to. Set backs and throwbacks, she was setting the score straight. She was no longer 0 for naught but rather 1 to nil. This was her one up and new beginning.

He'd laid out the rules in an impromptu way, simplicity in its finest performance. No running, no hiding, he would help her through all that ailed her. She smiled for him in his perfected role in the saviour complex. She would no longer run. She was never running out again. She couldn't go forever being the creep for she wanted the perfected soul.

Jude pulled herself from the floor and its Jupiter gravity, turning off the lights and turning to slink along the hallway to his room. She turned the knob of his door gently, sobered by the brassy click of the dead giveaway. She blindly side stepped the night illuminated dresser and held onto the tall bed poster for a sense of stability. She slid in among the ripples of his cotton sheets and musical breathing. She tenderly touched the rise and fall of his chest, counting quietly his heart arrhythmias.

_Forgive me, love, for the salt in your bed._

She resigned in her retirement, submitted to morning being something for the long time coming. She would try to control the jouncing and paranoid searches for a meaning to the spots. She would tackle the outsiders and wouldn't forever lay dying. It was only fair of her to try.


	10. Can I Tell You a Story?

Seems as if my FF fanaticism is waning, but I'll continue to write this. (More because I feel it's just another story rather than fan fiction.)

Hmm... This one came at like 750am. Damn muse.

Now I must make a real A/N: All 9 of the previous chapters have been there to set a tone. (And last chapter was me drawing upon every damn book I read in 9th grade. That, for me, had significance.) A few things I want to make clear – blue. BLUE. I'll continue to use it until I'm "smurfy" my damn self, but it does have a meaning. Just... think about it. Jude – up, down, up, down, sideways, yesterday, tomorrow, sob. Jude's done crying but it doesn't make everything ok. Jude... she's an odd character. Tommy – I think I live in his head these days. The Rest – HA. All will be revealed.

And at some pt, we will see G Major again. A little something that'll be thrown into the mix.

And there is some MAJOR juxtaposition going down. X is Y and Y is Z but does X plus Y plus Z equal W? Mwaha... Please believe. It's all there for a reason.

I really don't think our protagonists will EVER be as deep and emotional as we all make them, but we still do it. HMM.

Now that that's done...

Again, thank you for all the comments and reviews and to the A.W.D. You inspire me to be better. Here's to 2006...

* * *

Chapter 10 / Can I Tell You a Story? 

Tommy smiled down at the sleeping thing bound tightly in his micro-suede, burnt cobalt comforter. She lay on her stomach, sunbathing in the twilighting dawn, its final violet fantasies brought down for the night. He wasn't sure when she'd snuck past him or what brought her to his bed, but questions and wonderings were beyond him, now; he simply enjoyed waking up to her next to him.

He pulled at the corner of the blanket, sliding down the headboard he'd leaned upon. Any other time, he would have enveloped her in his strong arms and lay upon her like a Titanic door in his iceberg bedroom, but this morning was a time to marvel and dream. Sometimes, he'd count and try to figure out how long he'd known her, forever still clouding his mathematical reasoning. Other times, he solicited the help from some mystical-magical creature he kept in his bottom drawer to understand what he'd done to deserve her. More times than not, though, either in sleep or in dream, he would try to conjure up ways of making it all seem as enchanted as it did in his head.

In dreams, they were out of the city and on some remote island off the coast of New Brunswick doing nothing but what they loved – music, him writing a little, her trying to learn a new instrument to diversify her sound, waking up together. A cozy white house with beet red shudders, evergreens grew in thickets miles deep and the water around them would expand for days. Fog would remain until noon and the sun wouldn't set until eight; they'd sit amongst the firs and pines and contemplate whether the stars really did meaning something. She'd mentioned it all once before, a passing musing in the days of old, but it stuck to his ribs and fed him when he was drunk and the speed of his car left him malnourished.

He thought over the grace of her hands tucked so soundly under her, the simple lines of her body and how thin she looked, and the oversized t-shirt of his he'd let her borrow and loved to see her in. She wore him like a second skin, on and underneath, every story he told her emblazoning her own. She reminded him of his mother, before and after. Deep down, he still felt like the little boy playing with toy trucks and army men, watching the frenzied work of the woman he loved most. How she buzzed from this to that, futilely obsessing over every detail of a task. He was still the child who lay beside his sleeping protector, stroking her forehead and hoping she'd wake up okay, whispering in his tiny voice that he'd be good if she would just get better. Today, the voice wasn't so tiny and he was now the protector, but he still whispered promises and bargains to the slumbering sparrows on branches he couldn't reach.

"Morning..." Jude stretched out her arms between grumbles, turning her head to look at Tommy. He smiled shyly, filing away her sleepy eyes and smudged face into the photo book in the back of his mind.

"Morning, girl... Sleep alright?"

Jude's features glazed over with distance, a visual ticking and tocking of the mind playing itself for a few seconds.

"I need to call my family today." Tommy slightly raised his left eyebrow, wondering where that had come from. Jude closed her eyes, letting her face melt into his bed. "I don't know. I just have to tell them something, tell them I'm not at Brice anymore."

"Won't they flip?"

"Maybe, but whatever. I'll think of something. I've gotten good at it." She pushed herself up from the bed, sitting back on her heels. She looked around the room, grabbing her arms as she rubbed her hands up and down. "Do you always keep it so cold?"

He laughed softly, pulling her over to him. He draped his arm over her shoulder, continuing her warm up tactics.

"Yeah, I like it cold."

"You're a freak." She ran her hand over his torso before swinging her leg over his to get out of the bed. She paused for a moment, straddling his thighs and looking at the two of them in their positions. He looked down between them, her grinning as she shook her head at the absurdity. She slid from his lap, landing squarely on the plush carpet. She held out her hand to him, motioning towards the door. "Come on, Quincy. I'll make coffee."


	11. The Father, the Skeptic, and the Son

I have tried to write this 3 times. (They say 3 is a magic number.) Version 1 was overly written. Version 2 was so random even I couldn't finish it. And now... Version 3. (Oh you magic number!)

So, there is a plot. A plot that's really hidden and... my lungs hurt. And I sound like Alanis. But, to those who know, there is a very brief little "thing" said in the first paragraph- had to use it. You know I did... As for this chapter... It's sketchy. It's weird. It's something that doesn't make sense but it does. Think my children and you shall hear. Really, the sketchiness and oddness of it all just shows you where Jude's head is. Repression is an art form.

Chapter 12 is going to kick start this thing. I've suddenly been inspired so excuse the undeniable shitness of this one.

Something about writing once in present tense has tarnished me. Now, this should be there too.

Just wait...

* * *

Chapter 11 / The Father, the Skeptic, and the Son 

_Father complex. Inferiority complex. God complex. Complex complexes. Skewed enantiodromia. In and out... in and out... in and OUT._

Jude sat in his kitchen sink, the duty for coffee making taken up by Tommy before she could reach the kitchen. The drips from the faucet mixed with the percolating drops; the rust and the rain endure. She wanted it iced, tepid, scalding her tongue into recession; macchiato of sage surrounded by similes in metaphorical cinnamon.

She willed the sleeping demons to awaken fully, to scream at her once more. She wanted them to feel her coming of age, feel her shoot them down and count the feathers hitting the azure sky. _Wake up..._

The matte stainless steel was comforting, as was the hard soapstone countertop under her knees. She enjoyed her hunched position and watching him when he toyed with water levels and measuring spoons. She savored the way he squinted his eyes at ten and his fingers on the glass carafe. It all looked so eloquent, so orchestrated and so damn endearing. She bent her head to smile at the peculiar perplexities of his robotic mechanics, to examine her bare feet dangling against his beech cabinets.

He leaned against the same counter that indented her skin and you could smell the voltage emanating from his finger tips. _The rust and the rain endure... electrocution._

"Come here," she demanded. He looked to her, surprised but up for whatever she wanted. He moved and wedged himself between her legs, barely getting a glimpse of her in before she took his mouth with her own. She owned him; she felt it just as she felt his morning stubble sanding away at her face and the pure adrenaline that pushed her farther down in the sink.

She felt so far away from the real world at that moment, so far away from him. She was too far away from herself and all that made her feel as abnormally normal as possible. She was the girl in the bubble acting on impulsivity rather than her over calculated logic, but she owned him and it felt like she knew it would.

He pulled away, wild eyed and gasping for breath. He kept his hands on her thighs, whispering like cold November rain.

"What was that for?" His words struck her as comic, astonishment lingering at the tail end.

"Absolutely nothing..." The smile had long since faded, replaced by a disclosed stare. He turned his face to match her gazing, wonder stepping up to the plate.

She said nothing but slid out of the sink, down his torso, and out of the kitchen. She picked up his cell and slid her fingers over the keys. She counted every slip sliding ring and crackle, patiently lulled by the monotony of each sounding.

"_Hello?"_

"Is mom around?"

"_Jude? Is that you?"_

"Yes."

"_It's eight in the morning..."_

"Is she around?"

"_No, she had an early meeting. Why? Is something wrong?"_

"Why would you think something was wrong?" _Doctor Barry, how you taught me well. _She didn't wait for her answer, taking a look over her shoulder to see Tommy still in his mannequin position. "I'm out."

"_Out?"_

"Out of Brice. I'm out."

"_What? When? How?"_

_Twenty-one questions, twenty-one answers._

"Yesterday. Tommy checked me out."

"_Oh." _Sadie didn't try to conceal the disenchantment curving her monosyllabic response and Jude's expanding sadism enjoyed it. _She_ owned nothing. It made her feel good, making up for every second _she _had to see what wasn't rightfully hers. Jude wanted to be spiteful, but veered off track.

"I'll call mom at work."

"_So you're at Tommy's? When are you coming home?"_

"One day..." Jude disregarded the mentioning but suddenly felt bad. Everything always hit so suddenly in the time of late – lust, loneliness, bitterness, sadness – but it was The Way. "I'll come by today. I have to go. I love you, Sadie."

"_Love you too, Jude..."_

They hung up simultaneously, thinking about home and kisses. _Jude... _Her lips turned up to the mumbling.

Painlessly though haphazardly, she was amongst the real world inhibitors once again. _Time to be..._


	12. Tangelo Black but Lemonade Parade

Sometimes... I enjoy the recklessness. And I hope that everyone enjoys the blossoming of your author for you are receiving the stories that have yet to be told.

Everything is beginning and if you try to transpose what is seen with what isn't, the story is of greater importance than a "fix". A fix through fics is always very selfish, don't you think? Enjoy the transcendence.

I dedicate this readily to the one who knows... enjoy the title. And... this is one of those cases of tomorrow after yesterday's third plateau.

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Chapter 12 / Tangelo Black but Lemonade Parade 

_You know how us catholic girls can be, revelations to men who envy the darkest sins._

How many times they'd taken up residence in his black upholstered shell; how often it seemed that the turning of the tides happened just under the dark side of the moon within the alabaster gleam in his eyes. It was Sunday, a day for childhood stories and afternoon coffees after heavy church luncheons. Today, there were no social meetings or Styrofoam cups, only the pitter patter of the asphalt attacking and counting the merciful miles between here and there, but how tired she became with labeling "today". She only wanted to revert to yesterday while holding onto the idealism of tomorrow. She wanted to forget time all together and coexist with the sovereignty within his eyes.

_We all needed something to pray to. Alleluia. _

She often times wished to take a hold onto the cushiony wheel and steer them back down the road that took her away so long ago. To be trapped within his arms and tangled in the mess of paisley bed spreads and black leather seemed too far off a dream than the sanity she played Russian roulette with. Why couldn't she return to the simple, adoring child of yesteryear, the one who kissed and could only hope that she'd once again be affirmed that she was _just _fifteen? Seventeen brought with it the composition that even mathematicians couldn't fathom. Did it always mean more on the off years than the on? Did it always come down to a failing digit that couldn't be divided by mere chance or consequence? She would forever damn the odds while crying with the evens.

"Sometimes," her voice failed her just as seventeen was beginning to fail her. She inhaled and sighed concurrently, arranging the miniature magnetic words on his refrigerator telepathically. "Sometimes, I don't want to be Jude anymore."

He looked to her and said nothing as his course veered off to the sharp left, parking underneath an oak blazing in all of its chlorophyll glory. The ignition was killed and he waited patiently for her words to spring back to life.

"It all seems so worthless, don't you think? I am Jude but what does it mean? Absolutely nothing if you don't count personal definitions."

She spoke with such clarity that it seemed foreign to him. Where had the trembling girl in the café who fought relentlessly to form sentences vanished? Before him sat the prime cut throwing around philosophy as if it were just a breeze to catch on a Sunday afternoon. He tried to clear his throat but the growing tightness only sped up his asphyxiation.

"Tommy, don't you ever get tired of being yourself?"

She eyed him warily; he hanging onto the dusty backdrop like a canvas hung in a fool's precision. She imagined him speaking in the prophecy she'd heard before, but it wasn't before. It was today, a today she was so wary from hearing. At long last, he spoke. Faltered and cracked but still the softest, smoothest, brassiest key for every ancient lock to every Pharaohs tomb.

"Yes," he palmed the keys from the ignition switch, playing an unknown game with the "lock" and "unlock" buttons, "all the time."

She nodded her head in understanding, turning to take in the heavy tree overhead and breathing in the fresh smell of grass and green that enveloped her casually.

"Why do we do it?" She squinted her eyes to the filtered sun, thinking of how aqua-hazel his eyes became at three in the afternoon. "You and me... we could be so much more than 'rock stars', but we still do it. We'll walk into the studio some day soon and we'll work until our voices and fingers are numb, but we are so much more than those stupid records we put out."

She scared him, thinking that their main purpose in life was really so insignificant and futile, but it was like listening to the small violin playing in the background of a World War II documentary. It was the truth filled note between the agendas and the propaganda.

"You weren't meant to be a star, Tommy. You were destined to be something a lot bigger than that. What did you really want to be when you grew up?"

He looked down to his hands, internally laughing at the clunky pewter star ring he wore and how it could really just be sand he was trying to count. He shifted his eyes to her, a hidden, special smile tugging on his lower lip.

"I wanted to be on Sesame Street." He blushed, recalling his childhood fantasies of being inside the television and hugging Super Grover. Super Grover always seemed so happy and lovable, warm and wanting to hug _him. _"I wanted to hug Grover and talk Oscar out of his trash can. I always thought Oscar was the grouch because no one liked him but I did. I really liked Oscar. I wanted to be his friend."

Jude smiled at the small child in the driver's seat, thinking not of the man who lived up to expectations but the boy looking up to puppets and their feelings. She knew that boy was still under the surface, still idolizing small creatures and wanting to be their friends.

"I think Oscar would have been happy to be your friend." She stretched out her arms, thinking of her own childish dreams and wondering if Tommy would have played with her at seven just as he did at seventeen. "I've always wanted to be a kite."

"A kite? Why?" He turned and contorted his body to sit with his back to the door, marveling at the dreaminess that blurred her face and shoulders. She peered off distantly, smiling in a sort of smudged happiness.

"I wanted to touch the sun." She closed her eyes, imagining her fingers running over the white hot radii. "Have you ever noticed how different the sky looks in winter than it does in the summer?"

He reveled in her stream of consciousness, taking in the lemonade parades and tangerine dreams of her aura and vibrations.

"Yeah... it's bluer."

"You remind me of a January sky, so pretty but so sharp. It's like, if you touch it, you'll cut your fingers."

"You remind me of October and the hay rides I once took when I was really little. You're the little pumpkin they'd let me take home when it was all done, part souvenir, part jack-o-lantern, except... you aren't a souvenir."

She enjoyed him following her down this trip she was taking, how effortlessly he let himself get lost along the way. She enjoyed losing herself with him on the twisting and turning roads of Sleepy Hollow as it turned Halloween. She made up her mind then that he would have played with her and he would have helped her win the pumpkin carving contest between her and the rest of the neighborhood kids; that their pumpkin would have been of kites and Oscars and little tiny stars that sparkled so brilliantly when you dropped in the tea light her mother gave her.

"We should go on a hay ride one day. I've never been on one."

"We are on one, Jude."

She forgot herself in those words, digesting it as she did the pumpkin pie her grandmother made for Thanksgiving and how it always happened before All Saints Day. She sighed at the connotations, turning to look at him fully once more.

"You really are Saint Tommy."

He laughed quietly and sadly at her misconceptions of him.

"Does that make you Saint Jude?"

"I'm no saint."

"Me neither."

They sat in the silence, quietly feeling the dredges of springtime and how the sky would soon melt away into the summer's dog day oblivion. They wished for winter and the creaking bonfires of autumn, wishing to cast the lies they led for lives into the waving oak flames and let the rustic wood smoke settle into their hair. They wanted to return to the days of silly dreams and aspirations, hopscotch and miniscule six year differences. They breathed and dreamed and said Hail Mary's in tandem, thinking that maybe rock stars didn't always have to grow up.


	13. Oslo Doesn’t Fall

I was compelled.

Rewrite No.4 and... hm.

Post writing: This chapter... Past to present to past to present. I wrote it as it came. Screw what the story was or is. Writing is writing.

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Chapter 13 / Oslo Doesn't Fall 

Dollhouses for little girls and little men of gingham and faded tapestries, rich and royal hues filled the vagabonds, both returning to one's home. It wasn't the grand penthouse with it's windows praying to the sky or the wrought iron elevator doors that creaked when pushed but her own little dollhouse with makeshift inhabitants to make up for the lost pieces that disappeared some age ago. It was the weathered wooden gate that shrieked and whistled as she pushed it open. The familiarity was gone and it is now the missing era of Valhalla, the ride of the Valkyrie; her fingers bury into the wrist of her immortal, heroic Viking.

For a second, she feels hyper-aware of all that is around her while being so deftly mute and dumb to it all. She pulls him with her, pulls him up the front steps, to the front door, the front hallway, up the stairs and to the first bedroom to the front of the house. It isn't there to wonder why the front door wasn't locked or why no one was home or even why the comforting smells that permeated every upholstered piece of furniture now seemed rancid.

His mind reels in the engulfing sea of purples – lilacs, aubergines, huckleberries, dusky sunrise sunset purple all with its indigo and cerulean cousins. For a moment, he has to admit that he is afraid but of what, he can't define. Maybe it was the unknown that scared him or the echoes of a child on the floor, it is inexplicable. He feels his adrenaline run and the momentary endorphin-high just after. He is afraid of this room.

The previous conversation seemed to melt into her soft oatmeal rug, Oscars and kites riding the sheer curtains and drifting far out in the illusionary ocean. She leaves him to stand alone in the middle of the tightening room, taking a seat at the window. The sunlight now seems sinful in the icy confines of her walls; blazing into her pupils and having her relive all of the tired days and restless nights she spent within them. She wonders of lost treasures she now sees and understands, their importance something so hauntingly real.

"Jude, are you okay?" He can't take his eyes off her face, so iridescent and deathly pale in the white-washing sun. He wants to move, to go to her, but the frightening room won't let him. Her eyes dart up at him, so clear yet so murky in their ambiguity.

She returns to the view below; she can't help but think of Jaime. She shakes her head violently, hoping to dispel all of the darkness that wants to seep into the frayed edges.

"I forgot how much I hated this house." She pushes the curtain back over the little window, going to the rescue of the paralyzed man in the center of her floor. She pushes him gently to the bed, taking the personal space next to him. She holds his hand over her own, twisting her fingers in his, his fingertips resting squarely against her thigh. For the first time, she notices the small tattoo on his ring finger, some curling motif she can't make out. The ink transcends ideas and burns itself into the back of her eyes. It seems to mock her, never realizing it there. "This house drove me crazy. Don't you hear the screaming? I do. Fighting and yelling and Sadie crying in the next room. She was supposed to be the strong one, but I knew she wasn't."

He empathizes with her to a disgusting degree. He thinks of his own childhood, the rich father who left early in the game and the poor mother, shattered, with nothing but the monthly alimony. Unlike Jude, he had no siblings. It was them and the television always tuned into the children's programs _she_ enjoyed more than he did.

"I'm tired of talking, Tommy." She hums painfully as she turns away from him only to rest her legs over his. "Tell me a story."

For a mere moment, he thinks she means a fairy tale, some passive-aggressive thing of gingerbread houses and wicked witches. It doesn't take any time to realize that she means of him, something about his life rather than her always giving the details. He weighs and releases a heavy sigh, So many tragedies he could tell.

He looks down at her, her expectantly drifting off to another kind of life.

"My mother was a lot like you." He skips a beat and misses the tempo, the idea of letting it out so beyond him. "She had this abstract way of looking at things and this infectious smile that just ate you up."

He rubs along the length of her calf softly, her skin peeking through the rips comforting.

"She had _issues _though. She... wasn't really... _there._ She was..." Again, the flow stops. Painful memories of her tightly drawn curtains and fear of sleeping at night replays itself over and over.

"She was what?"

He stares at the open air earnestly and swears he can count each and ever molecule floating before his eyes.

"She was crazy. She... lost it after my dad walked out. She wouldn't go out and she was always busy around the house, trying to make everything so neat and organized. She would say that if everything was perfect, he'd come back." He sniffs ever so softly, searching out her hand but not being able to look at her after his confession. "It scares me sometimes how much you remind me of her."

She gives his hand a gentle squeeze in the hopes of aiding them both. The time seems eternal before the clatter and chatter from below knocks them out of the wilderness of which they've been roaming. She holds her breath, eager for it to be some mental manifestation rather than the music she is about to face. She sees his posture straighten and his emotional face return back to the open, blank stare that he's turned into art and knows that it is indeed reality.

She knows that now Valhalla is the underworld instead of Odin's paradise, Viking to now lead Valkyrie.


	14. Be Someone in Fast Cars

Let's do something... shall we? Six months and 23 days isn't really that long, is it? What can I say? I think I may pick this one out of the ashes.

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Chapter 14 / Be Someone in Fast Cars

Shrill, piercing, ringing, slicing, blood flowing down onto the concrete; her lungs were tight underneath the ancient oak. The sky didn't look Prussian blue and the trees didn't look baby's lullaby green. Ink poured from the clouds, Indian rust embedding itself in the Chap Stick she slathered on in attempts to squelch the parched flakiness that oozed and gasped for water – more water. Her chest constricted. Her heart quit beating. Her mind raced. Her eyes watered. Her arms hung forward so her palms could have a secret meeting with her knees. No, the sky wasn't for the Weimar Republic just as the trees didn't give her Sesame Street hope any longer.

Jude gazed longingly over her shoulder. Where did the tin soldiers go? Who were the damsels supposed to turn to?

"_Jude..." The mixed emotions weren't as lovely as they were when he sighed her name. She wrinkled her nose is contempt at the abuse the sudden rushing of exhalation from her mother seemed to inflict upon her already weary body. She'd known this wouldn't be easy but in one word, faith in J-shaped pancakes and tender bedtime stories to pass away the hours 'til half past ten seemed to fade into the forgiven bathroom, the putrid doctor, and cotton sheets that were always cool and smelled of gin. _

_She stooped lower down than she thought possible, taking three steps forward before backtracking and taking a guarded stance behind the wingback chair nearest the door. A sharp intake of air caused the humming in the room to intensify, Victoria nervously running her hands along the length of her box-cut trousers._

"_I thought... Aren't you supposed to be..."_

"_In the hospital?" Her stammering was making Jude's head spin. "I got out."_

"_When? _How?_"_

_Jude ran her fingers over her lips, pushing at the corners, hoping for a smile to reassure her that it was all okay. She thought of turning and looking at Tommy, her brilliant saviour in motorcycle leather. Victoria beat out the recognition with a quick glance over her daughter's head. _

"_I take it that you got her out, then." She looked downstage towards Jude once more. "Did they say you were well?"_

"_They didn't say anything, _Mom._"_

Uptight, fighting, belligerence, hands to ears and screaming to kill her voice once again; her neck had finally cooled down and the scarlet subsided but rerecording sprang forth somewhere in the mish-mash graffiti raining down in vaporized acrylic paint. She could feel her mind crumbling around her. She could see the small glass orb of her psyche cracking into a thousand pieces and falling piece by piece into the bottomless pit that lay beneath as the transparent pedestal.

"_It's good to have you home, sweetie." Victoria rushed beyond the line of control, embracing Jude in a tight hug. She pried the honeysuckle cashmere away from Tommy's omnipotent cotton t-shirt, kissing her mother instinctively and regrettably on the cheek._

"_I'm not coming home. Not now, not yet."_

_Victoria huffed, backing away with her eyes wide._

"_Do _not _tell me we are going to start this again. Jude," Jude closed her eyes and touched her mother's arm gently._

"_I'm not starting anything. Please understand..."_

Jude looked up to see the forgotten doll, the raggedy Andy she'd begged her father to grant her, stand before her stoically. Again, she played with her mouth, transfixed by the roughness she couldn't rub off. She bit down on her tongue, blinking rapidly and trying to comprehend the sadness that coated his thick eyelashes. She grabbed onto her wrist, pretending she was pulling herself back from the depths beginning – begging – to swallow her whole. Her hands were too hot. Her hands were too small. He hands weren't amber waves of grain or purple mountain's majesty or anything else that would make her feel some expatriate's homeland security.

She nodded quickly, making a lazy attempt for the snake pit, the garden of temptation and apples. He didn't move in her peripheral; he didn't move at all.

"Please tell me I don't really scare you, Tommy." The sound of her voice reminded her of the late night code breaking, of Kwest. "I don't want to be your mother."

The rustling of his crisp jeans was lost in the wind, the rubber footsteps tentative and calculated. She counted each one, multiplying them by the cracks in the sidewalk. Where was the trite and childish dandelion to wish away deals such as these?

"You aren't my mother. I could figure this out – find some sort of solution and make some sort of plan to fix everything if you were." His forearms breezed by hers coolly, him stopping at her side and leaning up against a neighbor's car. She followed the pathetic trail of ants climbing over the small pebbles that littered the suburban landscape to whatever adobe nest that held all of their mothers, fathers, sisters, disastrous lovers, and music makers.

"You don't have to fix me. You don't have to fix anything." She'd meant for it be a resolution not another stupid plea of insanity.

"Yes I do." She'd stirred his muted conviction, fired up the unyielding gavel of order. "I have a running history with this, don't I? I'm pretty sure I drive everyone over the edge."

She held up a hand to stop his tirade, turning to look at him as if the grizzly things blanketing the rooftops and his messy hair weren't what haunted her most.

"We're past blame games and pity parties." He blinked down at his hands in resignation. _You've got to make a decision – leave tonight or live and die this way. _ "Let's go_ home, _Tommy. Nothing can be salvaged here."

Whining, crying, misplaced anger, pleading, road blocks in garish orange rerouting the path down some persecuting detour; once again, the jury was back and she hung.


	15. Hungry and Hated

There is no need for prefacing because it'll all be crazy in the end anyway.

* * *

Chapter Something / Hungry and Hated

She spoke mindlessly into the telephone receiver, verbalizing grandiose stories she'd made up some time ago during her formal captivity between cerulean and azure stone. The stars burned brightly on the other end, listening to the storyteller, envisioning her own form of the plot twists, thinking that maybe she was the one telling them and all was to be okay. Finally, though, the conversation came to a close and the cordless technology was switched off and the ever shrinking violet sat hunched in the coat closet hugging the lifeless phone that once buzzed in hope and promises.

She couldn't remember time anymore. She preferred to step away from the idle day counting and tallying of scores that always seemed to defy even the most deep-rooted postulates and theorems. If she was to recall anything, it would be maybe a month – maybe two, who knew? – since she'd escaped from the land of medical diagnoses and happy lemon pills and taken up shelter in an icy abode and with a man she was beginning to hate despite how much she hated herself for thinking it. She found in the minutes and hours she laid awake next to him a sense of melancholy spitefulness. She felt as if she was a captive in the love he proclaimed and took pity on him just as she was beginning to take pity on even the most mundane things in life – the dying flowers in his urbanized garden, the paint scratches along the fender of he precious car, the worn spots in the oatmeal rug he'd made pacing back and forth in his worry for her and the condition she was in. In this pity she found a common streak of masochism and an even broader stroke of sadism. She hurt herself with the sadness it all caused and hurt those around her when she became overly emotional from it. She couldn't escape the loops that threw everyone for a tailspin but the worst part was that she enjoyed it just a little too much.

It was evenings like these – just after dinner and before bedtime, the twilights of primetime television watching – that she'd forgo the nighttime dramas for studying his face while he scanned the day's newspaper. Every so often, he'd look up and smile in her direction, often times telling her about her stars for the day gone by and comparing Scorpios to Geminis. Sometimes he'd find a particular article in the paper that mentioned something that would be beneficial to them in the long run but made no sense at the time and discuss it in short length. She'd try and hide the look of boredom that crept onto her features but it was of no use and he'd sigh, going back to paper and ink yet again.

She'd grown hungry since she went crazy and nothing she could find would sate her. She had a foreboding need to taint his very existence, to show him what the brink of unconsciousness really felt like. She needed for him to be predatory in her vulnerable state. She needed him to feed off of the temptation she knew could rival apples and gardens of Eden. The placidity he presented to her – the unyielding protection he gave her – wouldn't do for any longer. She needed him to be a man. She needed him to be the man she knew he was capable of being. She would never get out if he didn't get in with her.

He looked up at her as he always did only this time she wasn't dissecting him piece by piece but was walking to him in stealth precision, wide-eyed and expectant. There were proverbial flashes of light and everything turned to muted platinum as her warm hands held his face and brought it to hers. There was no time to calculate errors in decorum or think about responsibilities. There was a peculiar amount of sanctity found in the volatile kiss she gave him. She poured over him like quicksilver, flushing his body in warmth he hadn't felt in a long time.

She felt his resistance, his restraint, his self-sacrificing ability to keep the kiss as chaste as any hot-blooded male could. She would break him. She would possess him in the end.

And she did.

It was to be a moment of sheer weakness on his part and of complete control on hers, but as she lay on top of him, her sweat moistened brow falling into the contour of his bare chest, reality crumbled above her. While she'd never felt more alive, she knew something had changed as she felt his body shake softly beneath her. She didn't need to look up to know that he wasn't cold or spent but that salty tears were causing the tremor. Why would he cry in a moment as beautiful as this? Did he find fault with her? Did it not live up to the fantasies and expectations she knew he had?

She slid from on top of his body to press herself securely to his side. She brought his arm over her naked breasts and placed small, loving kissing along the bicep of the pitiful man sobbing after their final coupling.

"Do you regret it, Tommy?" She whispered to him in a matter-of-fact tone, not sad that he could possibly regret what had happened but hurting for him more than anything. It was a strange thing and it wasn't matching up to any romance novel she could recall. "Are you ok?"

He sniffed softly, half-laughing next to her in an even stranger way that was even harder to figure out. "I should be asking you that." He sighed a bit, breathing coolly once more. "I don't regret anything. I just... I'm sorry. I shouldn't... I... How? I..."

His boyish stammering endeared her. "You didn't. I mean... If you think you were hurting me in anyway, you haven't. Don't regret it. Don't think of it as a bad thing."

"I didn't think we'd go there and we did. This game we've been playing... it's all changed now. You're..." He couldn't put the words together and she couldn't speak for him. She honestly didn't know what he was saying neither did she know what she was trying to say or get across when she went after him as she did.

"I wanted it. I made it happen. I needed to happen is what I mean."

"I'm afraid that you'll get worse, though. As much as I may have liked it, I'm afraid that this will hurt you in the end."

"It hurt more knowing you'd withdrawn from me, denied yourself the way that you have been." She gave his arm another peck, wrapping her hand up with his. "This was the only way I knew of to get you to come back to me. It was a good thing even if I can't explain why I did it. I know it doesn't make sense and it doesn't seem to fit into anything I can find to fit it into, but it was my last card. You shouldn't feel bad for that. You should never feel bad for us."

He was right when he told her the game had changed. It was as if a single act of animalistic humanism had been the breaking point she'd needed to reach for the day and tomorrow would be a new day. Calls to make, people to explain things to, stories to smooth out, demons to battle, songs to write, and things to take care of; for the moment though, she was content lying next to him and telling him tales that would aid in the bigger picture she was working on and would finally finish in the days to come.


End file.
